Political Pamphlets in Early Seventeenth-Century France: The Propaganda War between Louis XIII and His Mother, 1619–20

Sharon Kettering

Montgomery College, emerita

In 1619, Marie de Medicis sought to regain her seat on the royal council by leading an armed revolt against her son King Louis XIII of France. She sought noble support through a pamphlet campaign attacking the king’s advisers, and the king responded with his own series of pamphlets. The king’s pamphlets were more widely read and more influential than his mother’s because they responded directly to the problem of resolving the crisis. He portrayed himself as a young warrior king acting decisively as head of state, and his mother as a weak, confused woman who had abandoned her natural role as a mother and was being manipulated by selfish, quarreling great nobles. She did not counter with a convincing explanation of what she was trying to accomplish, and her supporters began to switch sides in large numbers during the autumn of 1620, thus resolving the crisis.